It was a bit of a grey morning as we had all three of our vessels leaving the dock on August 11th, but we were still buzzing with excitement since there was a rare animal sighted not too far from us. One of the boats based in Vancouver who we are in contact with had found a large pod of Pacific White-sided dolphins! We headed over there to see if we would be able to re-acquire these small cetaceans. It wasn’t long before we saw lots of movement in the water, as about 30-40 dolphins played around in the water.

We got to see all sorts of behaviour from these animals as we watched them, breaching, porpoising, and a bit of curiosity towards a large sailboat that was floating nearby watching them as well. All of a sudden, the dolphins took off south, moving very quickly as we followed them.

These dolphins are estimated to live to about 40 years old and are very social. A large group like this one likely consists of a few smaller family groups, which may split off and be seen on their own as well as in large congregations like this one. Each of these dolphins, if fully grown, would weigh about 300-400 pounds, and could be up to 8 feet long (140-180 kg; 2.5m). There seemed to be a few smaller ones in the group today as well, maybe calves from this year? Females will have a calf every 2-3 years, with a gestation period of just under a year. The calves will be dependent on their mothers for milk for up to 18 months! After this, they will also start to fish for themselves. Most of the time Pacific White-sided Dolphins are after small schooling fish or cephalopods for their food. They will eat these animals whole once they catch them. Catching schooling animals can be difficult on their own, so the dolphins would work together when they are hunting, coordinating a tighter bait ball that they would then hunt. This would all happen under the water, with the lung capacity of one of the dolphins allowing them to stay under for about 5 or 6 minutes at a time.

It was clear that they weren’t feeding as we were watching them today though, as we got to enjoy the time with them at the surface, being playful and curious with each other and their surroundings. But all good things must come to an end, and as they picked up speed and took off, we let them, and we continued our search for whales.

We ended up finding our whales today close to the Sunshine Coast. All three of our vessels got to watch a pair of humpback whales, Zorro (BCX0380) and Mammoth (BCX1710) feeding along the shore line. Both of these whales are a great reminder of the resilience of the humpbacks since they have both been injured from man-caused issues, but they both survived. You will be able to see from the photos below, that Mammoth was hit by a boat which left scarring from where the propeller cut into her back as it passed over her, whereas Zorro is missing the entire left side of his tail fluke, likely from entanglement. Zorro in particular has been talked about a lot lately since one of the other whales in the area might end up in the same situation as him. A young whale named Schooner was recently entangled and had the rope but deep into his tail, nearly severing the tip from the rest of it, very similar to Zorro. While Schooner is still in the early stages and it’s too soon to know if he will survive that extreme injury, Zorro gives us hope. Although Zorro is missing a large portion of his tail, he continues to be seen in our waters and has been seen returning with half a tail since 2004. We aren’t sure when Mammoth received her injury, but she has been healthy enough to reproduce and care for her calves, so it must not bother her anymore, now that it is all healed!

Watching these two who have such clear signs of the negative impact that humans can have on wildlife if we aren’t careful was a sombre reminder of our responsibilities to ensure that we can help protect these animals and keep them safe for generations to come. Thankfully, there has already been such an incredible increase in the amount of protection surrounding our whales!

After spending time with these two, we started back across the Strait of Georgia, but we spotted more blows along the way! One of our vessels saw a single whale give a fluke as they went to dive. We didn’t recognize this whale on the water, but after going through photos back at the office on a bigger screen we figured out that it was Trooper/Slice (BCX1854). Trooper continues the pattern of whales today, as he was also hit by a ship when he was younger. In 2018, when he was spending time in Howe Sound, a boat hit him, leaving a huge gash behind his dorsal fin. Since that time, he has also healed up very well and it no longer seems to bother him. In fact, he was spending a lot of time feeding under the surface today, so we decided to leave him to it and continued across the Strait. While this boat was spending time with Trooper, The other two came across another single humpback whale: Dalmatian (BCY0994). Lucky for us, Dalmatian doesn’t have a sad story to go along with him. Dalmatian is an 8-year-old whale and arguably has one of the most recognizable and beautiful tails that we see during our tours. The name Dalmatian comes from the spotting on his tail, similar to the breed of dog. Dalmatian was also very focused on food today, going for long, deep dives to fill up his belly! We didn’t stick around long here either before continuing towards the Harbour once more.

While two of the boats made it back to the Harbour without any more stops, one found a very last Humpback Whale: Beak (BCX1606). We only stuck around long enough to confirm who this whale was before this boat also returned to Nanaimo. It was a wonderful morning spent with all the wildlife! Photos from the morning were taken by the onboard marine naturalists Aly Kohlman, Des Poier, and Vanessa Vereschahen, all of which can be viewed below.

August 11, 2024, 10:30 am - Humpback Whales and Pacific White-sided Dolphins!

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